Creating Actionable Feedback
Every conversation is an opportunity for action oriented feedback. Today we’re joined by T and we hear about how he links conversations and action planning for results. This way relationships are constantly trying to help each other and raise each other up. No one likes to hear negative feedback but improvement comes when meaningful feedback is given with an opportunity for action. Subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode!
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Sara: Welcome to, Can I Offer You Some Feedback? My name is Sara, and this is the podcast for those who have a complicated relationship with feedback and are looking to hear from real people across levels and industries with their ideas, perspectives, and best practices on feedback. Before we dive in, I'd like to introduce our guest for the podcast today, T. He's an attorney focused on estate planning and probate issues, and a former healthcare administrator. Welcome to the show.
T: Thank you, Sara. Wonderful to be here.
Sara: So let's kick things off with the main question of the podcast. When I say the phrase, "can I offer you some feedback?" What's your gut reaction when you hear that?
T: My gut reaction when I hear that is simply, someone is going to say something negative towards me.
Sara: So you immediately jump to the negative side?
T: Well, yeah. People don't generally ask permission to say nice things to you.
Sara: That's interesting.
T: So if someone comes up to you and says, "Wow, you look really pretty today." They're not going to say, "Can I give you some feedback? I think you look pretty." Like, can I give you some feedback? They are priming you for some negative, critical feedback.
Sara: So you feel like it's couching kind of the conversation and like setting you up to receive something that you may not like to hear.
T: Correct.
Sara: Okay, interesting. When you're thinking about feedback, do you prefer to give feedback or to receive feedback?
T: I mean, no one likes receiving negative feedback, right? Sorry, I'm just assuming that all feedback is negative and pejorative. I guess a better answer to your question is, I think that all feedback needs to be a conversation. It can't just be one way. It has to be bidirectional. So, I like to both give and receive feedback. And when I'm giving feedback, I generally like to give feedback on the feedback that was given so that people who talk to me know this was properly received and or given, or you know what? You just said some things that went over my head because you did it wrong. So I like it to be a conversation. A back and forth. Good question, Sara.
Sara: I like that you're sharing, it's a conversation. It's not one-directional. It's something that two people or more are participating in and that perhaps implies that there's some relationship already present. That it's not just being given out of context. I like that you're kind of connecting those. I'm curious to know when you're thinking about, whether it's in the conversation or outside of that conversation, how do you define meaningful feedback?
T: Meaningful feedback to me is something that comes with the opportunity for action. So giving someone feedback of, "you really screwed that up," that in and of itself is meaningless because, cool, I screwed that up. How do I do it better? Why do you think that I screwed it up? Do I agree with you that I screwed it up? There's a lot more in here. So in order for it to be meaningful, it's, "wow, you really screwed that up." Obviously, no one should say that because again, you're putting them on the defensive, they're just going to shut down. But talking about opportunities to do it better or differently in the future, giving people a roadmap or an opportunity for further discussion of, "in the future, we should talk about this and we should come up with a plan." So I think meaningful feedback is something that is actionable.
Sara: I know that to be true in working with you. That tied to action, like what do we do after this conversation so that we're not just talking? That it's tied to a plan, that it's tied to a direction, that there are clearly defined steps to it really can be very impactful, especially for both sides to know where are we standing, where are we on the path to improve whatever it is or to continue to see that great behavior if it's supportive feedback. But definitely, that action orientation to it. I'm curious, when you're thinking about that meaningful feedback and that action orientation, do you have an example that comes to mind of where either you've seen or you've observed it or perhaps you've received that meaningful action-oriented feedback?
T: One specific example does not come to mind. Unfortunately, I don't have a let me tell you about a time when. What I can tell you is that the way that I live my life every single day with all of the relationships around me is one in which I make sure that any conversation is meaningful with meaningful feedback, with actionable next steps. Or is predefined as this is a meaningless conversation. We are having fun. We are just drinking. Whatever it is that we're doing, it's not meaningful. So like in my relationships with my clients, in my relationships with the other people in my office, in my relationship with my friends, with my wife, every conversation is an opportunity for meaningful feedback. Because I feel like the relationships that I have developed around me are ones in which we're constantly trying to help each other. We are raising each other up. And we're doing that, like even you and me, Sara over the 20 years that I've known you, we don't do small talk. We do, "Wow. I saw you just talk to that girl," or "I see that you just did this at work." Like, why did you do that? And how do we do better? And like, let me tell you how I think it is. So I think it's like more of a continuous improvement type process of like, let's keep going back and forth, back and forth. Versus like, here's one experience of like, let me tell you this one time my boss came in and gave me feedback. Yeah, it should be every day in order for us to constantly be improving on ourselves.
Sara: Right. I love that you made that connection to the continuous improvement side. It is best done when it's iterative. When we think about feedback, it's ongoing, it's building on that prior conversation by our relationship. And I know you've got that quality background to think about continuous improvement and how that can be impactful on the relationship that you're building, just like the process you're working on or the workstream that you're looking at. It's also improving the relationship and how that might be impacted as well. If I gave you some power and you could have one thing that people could do better regarding feedback, one thing for them to keep in mind, what might it be?
T: I think people need to be more direct. The feedback that I have received over the years from people that I don't necessarily have a good relationship with generally comes at an angle. And me personally, I do not hear people very well when they're trying to tiptoe through the tulips and kind of talk around an issue. I'm not afraid of someone saying, "Hey, I think that there's an opportunity to do better here." But if I'm in a conversation and someone says, "Well, that could've gone better." That isn't feedback to me. That is their opinion on a situation and I don't know if it's about me, it's about them, it's about it's too warm in here. I think feedback needs to be direct. And as I said before, it also needs to be actionable.
Sara: Yeah. I'm going to tie that in in a moment. So I guess I'll ask you, for the last question of our time together, T, can I offer you some feedback?
T: Are you going to give me something negative right now? Because the answer is, Sara, from you, you can always give feedback. I have a piece of paper and I'm ready to go. What can I do better?
Sara: I mean, you've touched on those items and I don't necessarily think it's to do better. I'd love to see you continue to do these things. One of the things that I really value in being able to talk, and we've worked together, we've been friends for a long time, I think that I appreciate your direct approach. I know that when I'm going to talk to you, you're going to tell me the way it is and it isn't going to be tiptoeing around the tulips, and it's not going to be beating around the bush or any other garden phrase we can come up with. You're going to tell it to me like it is and then we're going to discuss it. And then we're going to process it and then we can dig in a little bit more. I also appreciate, and you touched on this earlier, that action orientation. You push people to come up with the next step. You've shared that this is a frustration, what are you going to do about it? You've shared you want to make this thing better, what's the next step? And I think that that push towards a purpose or push towards that action is very needed. And especially, we've seen in a number of our conversations, I think that that's really helpful for people to not only discuss what could be better but also to talk about how they're going to participate in that. And I know that you also hold people accountable. So I definitely appreciate those two things. So definitely not a criticism but more of a, I'd love to continue to see it. I know I've been grateful to be able to receive it and I'm hoping that you do that with others as well.
Well, T, I wanted to thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. And thanks to you for joining us on another episode of Can I Offer You Some Feedback? You can reach me at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you and your thoughts on feedback or any other perspectives you'd like to hear from next. As always, give us a quick rating on your platform of choice and share this podcast with a friend. And I'm hoping that tomorrow you take a chance and offer some feedback when it's needed most.
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